before we get to politics this morning, i want to give you a quick update on sandy. the storm which overnight had been downgraded to tropical storm status is now back to hurricane-force winds. sandy will continue moving away from the northwest this morning and move parallel to the southeast coast of the united states through the weekend. serious and life-threatening weather conditions are expected as early as tomorrow evening from outer banks to new england. new york, pennsylvania, maryland, virginia and north carolina plus the district of column yeah have already declared states of emergency. a tropical storm warning is in effect for parts of florida. we'll have more updates on sandy later in the program. right now i want to turn to politics. this, my friends, is $26.86. $26.86, not a hunl amount of money. certainly not enough for a spiffy new iphone 5. it will get you plenty of itunes downloads. not enough to take the whole family to the movies, but you could probably treat yourself to lunch at applebee's. imagine that $26.86 compounded every second. that is $1,611